Aviation bosses have criticised the Government’s “traffic light system” for resuming international travel, saying that the requirement for travellers to and from “green list” countries to be tested for Covid will price many people out of holidays abroad. The Mail has the story.
The new traffic light scheme will see countries rated green, amber or red using criteria including vaccination levels, case numbers and the prevalence of coronavirus variants.
Travellers returning from countries rated “green” will not be required to self-isolate, although pre-departure and post-arrival tests will still be needed.
EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren said the testing requirement should be ditched because if countries have cases under control and have extensive vaccination programmes then “green is green”.
He said paying for laboratory-based PCR tests would cost “way over and above what the cost is of an average easyJet fare” which would result in only opening up international travel “for people who can afford it”.
He said that would not be “fair” or “right” as he also questioned whether the approach was backed up by science.
His comments came after Mr Johnson said he is “hopeful” of resuming some non-essential foreign travel from May 17th but refused to give a firm commitment to the roadmap date.
Government regulations on testing for those travelling abroad has been widely criticised for adding so much to the cost of holidays. A Lockdown Sceptics reader recently highlighted the additional costs suffered by British travellers to France because of the requirement to have three PCR tests at a minimum of £120 each.
If you want to come back from France to the UK you have to provide a negative PCR test. That costs a very reasonable € 15… in France.
But on your return to the UK, you have to undergo two more PCR tests, on day two and day five after you arrive. For some mysterious reason, the cheapest tests in the UK are £120(!) each from Boots (and ridiculous amounts more from other providers). Even the Boots “bargain basement” cost adds an outrageous £360 to the total cost of a trip to France, as, of course, you need a PCR test outward bound too!
Lloyds Pharmacy has since undercut Boots’ PCR test cost… by £1.
The Mail’s report is worth reading in full.
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It’s almost as if coronavirus is being used as a vehicle to massively reduce travel by the plebs and cut CO2 emissions* because there is, apparently a CLIMATE EMERGENCY.
(Travelling UEFA officials and government ministers, royalty and Big Tech billionaires do not generate CO2 when they travel of course)
Surely not. “But why would they DO thaaat!”
Possibly. More likely is that controlling borders is popular with certain sections of the electorate and it allows politicians to control things and feel important. Power as an end in itself. They are drunk on it. They love telling other people what to do and what not to do, but I don’t think they much care what they are telling them.
Yes I agree. I think some EU countries are enjoying punishing the UK now for Brexit and ‘cos we the jabz done quicker or some shit.
Personally I won’t be going anywhere until it’s genuinely green, no tests, no vaccines. I wonder if I’ll ever go abroad again?!
It’s not just EU countries, it’s everywhere and they are punishing their own people as well as others
British don’t have to quarantine on arrival to most EU countries. It’s our own government that forces us to quarantine on return.
Brexit obsession is mostly a UK phenomenon.
So do I, but there are worse fates than that.
It’s definitely linked to absolute control of the people as to where and when we will be allowed to travel.
I despair of people not seeing the big picture. Of course its to do with exactly the same control that the elites want via a totalitarian regime. They see the power and wealth to be created by disruptive technologies to economies as vast. ‘Climate change’ as a product of CO2 emissions by humans is as idiotic as the threat to human life from a coronavirus. They are part of exactly the same strategy to control.
I guess the point I am making is that most of this looks to me like the exercise of power for its own sake, or to cement existing power. Any and all the agendas that may exist and are being followed are just means to an end – power. I don’t suppose many people here believe that our PM or any of the rest of them actually give a toss about climate change, or people dying of covid.
Tony fuckin Bliar.
All we need to know.
Places like Malta – highly dependent on the tourist trade – are cutting their own throats. The UK is also doing that, of course – but tourism is a smaller percentage of commerce.
That makes me think that, conspiracies or not, there is also an admixture of ignorant stupidity bound up in all this. The two are not incompatible. We are obviously not dealing with a surfeit of high-power intellects in the governing classes.
Cutting the throat of commerce, ( the small, local, difficult to track kind ) is quite possibly their goal though.
Funny you mention that:
https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/06/ebay-replaces-paypal-what-it-means-for-buyers-and-sellers/
I’m not an e-commerce seller, but they tried to force me to hand over my account details by June 1st. Ebay lost another seller.
It is highly concerning for the future of those involved in the travel industry. I doubt these diktats are reflective of desperate locals.
Well, I only ever wanted to visit Malta to justify making a weak joke about being a Malteser.
So no great loss.
–
Super, so that’s one less country I need to consider when choosing where to travel.
My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Malta. Very interesting history (especially the pre-history) but it is, all-in-all, a very strange place. We travelled independently around the whole of the main island and Gozo. Really got off the beaten track. The whole population is directly dependent upon tourism, and yet, amazingly, we found most to be arrogant, ignorant and quite inhospitable. Probably something to do with the fact that the UK’s Royal Air Force – stationed there for many years and responsible for supporting the economy in a very large way for many decades – provided a captive audience. Until they left, that is. I think the Maltese still cannot grasp that normal visitors have a choice.
Portugal, on the other hand, continues to have a long-standing relationship with Britain, and is the most hospitable place we have ever visited. I feel inferior to Portuguese waiters in every way – an amazing cadre of humanity. Even better than French waiters. For them, it’s a real “career choice”, and it shows. And Cristiano Ronaldo is Portuguese, and he doesn’t wear a mask, so even better.
England’s oldest ally.(Portugal).
From Elizabethan times.
From the Hundred Years’ War, actually. 1386. We go back a long, long way.
I agree wholeheartedly with your opinion of Malta as well as Portugal.
I’ve only been to Malta once. I won’t lose any sleep at the thought of not going back.
“The Guardian also reports that authorities in the Balearic Islands are calling on the central Spanish Government to tighten controls for holidaymakers arriving from the U.K..”
So the Balearic Islands do not want tourists anymore. They’re calling for their own demise. The longer this drags on, the higher the chances that they will become dirt poor, whilst remaining at exactly the same low risk of dying with wuflu as if they hadn’t grenaded their economy… I cannot understand this mentality.
Just get the shot slaves !
Told my Mrs back in April 2020 that I was not taking any vaccine and probably wouldn’t be allowed out of the country again as a result. I’m sure she thought I was a crank at the time.
Will be interesting to see how the next 12-24 months play out with ADE, spike proteins, Ivermectin, Digital ID etc. It’s not going to be dull !!!!
Indeed, popcorn time! The sheeple may well be in line for getting to the end of the line. Tears may well come to my eyes, but they will not be tears of sympathy.
How much more ludicrous can this get.
The people of Malta are pathetic……from showing backbone and standing up to the Germans 70 years ago (despite the odds) to cravenly rolling over to them now because Merkel wants all of the EU to follow her Brexit-revenge orders and petty spite.
Can we take the George Cross back? They dont deserve to keep it.
Even if the empirical evidence meant we were swamped by a new variant that was even more deadly, whats the risk to the people of Malta? Zero!
As they proudly have on their tourism website they have reached herd immunity
https://www.visitmalta.com/en/malta-herd-immunity/
But as it is we are guilty of over testing and identifying any variants that may be present here. Other countries dont bother looking and can hand on heart say they they havent found anything!
Perhaps we should do the same…….
“The people of Malta are pathetic”
From what I understand from my half-Maltese cousin, the Maltese people are being governed by some very corrupt politicians. Malta has had a lot of EU funding, and where there’s money, there’s crooked people, some of whom get elected.
‘people are being governed by some very corrupt politicians’ much like most countries, then, with the people being hoodwinked into giving up their rights and freedoms.
Has anyone considered that it is the UK that is Brexit obsessed, not the EU.
It is currently Britain that is forcing EVERYONE arriving from EU countries to quarantine. Not vice versa.
If Merkel or Malta or the Balearics are calling for Brits to isolate on arrival, perhaps it is just a reciprocal measure.
Worth noting that when you read “Malta” or “the Balearics” calling for xy or z it is presumably political leaders doing so and the populations are just as helpless and abused as here.
Won’t be going to Malta then – I’ll take my money elsewhere.
But what if they’re important? Like, reeeeeally important?
Malta will host the next G7 as a reward.
Once AGAIN “Fully Vaccinated” is a PR nonsense.
Please don’t use rubbish like that here…
Fortunatamente I have visited Malta 3 times already so I have no interest in going ever again. Our last trip was a nightmare but I won’t bore you with the details.
If Covid is so dangerous and the vaccines don’t stop people from catching and passing it on, why are countries not insisting on a negative test at arrival rather than proof of two suspect injections?
Is the real reason a soon to be a global ‘health pass’ (Universal ID) and an ongoing ‘vaccine rollout’?
I’m genuinely curious if anyone else is entertaining this idea: is it possible the UK govt made this double-dose mandate a condition for putting Malta on the green list?
You’d think a place that’s as dependent on tourism as Malta wouldn’t impose additional restrictions willingly, and I find it suspicious that malta is the only new green list addition that’s not on the “watch list….”
Just feels like a deal was struck to me…. Or this is clown world and Malta is economically suicidal. Equally possible i guess
Simple – don’t go to fuckin Malta.
Sorted.
Meanwhile, the G7’s anti money laundering Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has added Malta to its grey list of countries suspected of shady financial transactions, along with Haiti, the Philippines, and South Sudan.
Vaccine passports by the back door, avoid any country like Malta that basicaly is fostering division and discrimination, every time you hear “only if double vaccinated” think the words “only if non jew” “only if white”. These are the same methods used by other wicked regimes do not support them
More nonsense. The list of breakthrough cases going through the roof. I guess this will be the next decision to change based on real data not nonsense.